If they could be sued or taken off the bench by prosecutions, it would be a shit show. Every partisan and their dog would be gunning for the justices for all offenses real or imagined. The system just wouldn't work.
The checks in place are the President appoints, the Senate approves, and Congress can remove.
Now, the fact Congress increasingly abdicates its various responsibilities due to partisanship and a lack of willingness or desire to make hard decisions due to elections always being around the corner has worsened over time. People look at the Court, but I am always far more in awe of just how much power Congress has let the Executive accrue for itself over the past sixty or so years. These people don't want to be responsible for anything a voter might say boo to.
When you read about Congress in the 19th and first half of the 20th Centuries, you see a body that very much kept its role as a coequal branch of government firmly in mind. They didn't have the kind of deference you see to the Court and the Executive. They were proactively protective of their constitutional role, rights, and prerogatives.
All that said, I would happily support something like term limits for justices. This "Power forever!" philosophy at the heart of Washington is killing us. Not just the justices, but Congress itself. Are people really telling me, we have to have the same leadership over and over, and that's the best we can do? That's madness to me. People hate this word, but we really have become a gerontocracy.
There need to be limits on this stuff.
One thing I'll note. As long as I've been a politically aware adult (about twenty years now), the Court has always been a largely partisan institution. Liberal justices vote liberally, conservative justices vote conservatively. Sure, we had people like Kennedy who would sway one way or another, and it provided some balance.
But it was always going to be a contest, and we never cared when we thought we could win it. If we had six liberal justices who reliably voted the way we wanted, these Court discussions would be non-existent. We'd be all, "That's just how the system is!" Well, we didn't win the contest. After decades of jockeying, the Right got their iron majority first.
We played that game, we lost. What to do about that, I don't know. Just keep voting, I guess. But the way the Court works isn't going to change. Even in all these conversations, we're still angling with the same old game. "Let's get partisan liberals on the Court so they can vote the way we want."
We're happy with how the Court functions when it serves purpose. When it doesn't, well, then it's suddenly a crisis.
But unless someone's amending the Constitution next week, Congress is the check against judges on the bench. It will have to be taken up with them. So it'll never be taken up.
Although I imagine a murder would be a pretty quick path to impeachment. Potentially bribery as well.
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